1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electronic appliance equipped with various sensors for acquiring various measurement data such as altitude, water-depths, atmospheric pressure, and temperatures and for displaying these measurement data. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an electronic wristwatch capable of visually displaying variation trends in these measurement data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, various electronic wristwatches have been developed which are equipped with a sensor to display not only time data, but also atmospheric pressure data, water-depth data, or temperature data. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,716 entitled to Tamaki et al., assigned to the same assignee of this patent application, discloses the electronic wristwatch having the electronic/optical display unit for displaying the water-depth data and the atmospheric pressure data in a digital form, or an analog form. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,696,610 entitled to Charbonnier, issued on Oct. 10, 1972 discloses the wristwatch for displaying the various diving data in an analog form by torn-ting the pointer.
These conventional wristwatches own inherent drawbacks. In the case of the digital display mode, it is difficult to intuitively grasp changing degrees in the digitally displayed values. In the case of the analog display mode, such a changing degree in the analog-displayed values may be readily recognized. However, in order that the various values in a wide range should be displayed within a limited display space, a large value should be displayed by moving the pointer over a short moving distance. As a consequence, since the pointer could not be consciously moved in response to a very small change, there is another problem that such a small change in the measurement values cannot be easily recognized.